


Okay

by DarthLivion (DistantShenanigans)



Category: Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Arches over A New Hope, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Gen, M/M, Mostly Canon Compliant, Post-Star Wars: Rebels, family fluff (ish?), major story background is canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-15 02:57:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16925220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DistantShenanigans/pseuds/DarthLivion
Summary: Rex's journey, post Rebels, and into A New Hope.





	Okay

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jahaliel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jahaliel/gifts).



> Gift for Jahaliel, for their birthday. I... I tried for fluff, and got this instead? _I'm sorry omg_
> 
> Mando'a:  
>  _jetii_ \- jedi  
>  _staabi kaden_ \- righteous anger (staabi is right, kaden is angry. I'm kinda... throwing it together. I tried. I'm sorry.)

It was easy to forget, sometimes, as he watched Kanan and Hera move around, with the kids and Zeb, and now even Kallus. It was easy to forget he was a _clone_ , because traveling on the Ghost was easy and a bit familiar.

But then they started the base, and more and more Rebels were around, and some of them remembered life in the Republic. Some of them remembered what his brothers did.

( _What Wolffe did, what you and Gregor were lucky to avoid, what you would have done, had Kix not found the chips, had Ahsoka not ordered their removals._ )

He began to back away from the public areas, where the non-fighters usually spent time. He stuck to the training room someone set up – hand to hand, and a firing range just off it – and the room he was given. If he had to be somewhere else, he went with Kanan, or Hera, and sometimes Zeb.

He avoided the kids, now, because of the whispers and slicing comments.

And then he met Luke Skywalker, albeit briefly, while tracking Maul for Kanan and Hera, and his heart stopped.

( _Skywalker_.)

( _That dumbass had a child._ )

( _What the fuck was wrong with Senator Amidala for actually doing that – with someone as chaotic and idiotic as Skywalker? No, don't speak ill of the dead – even if she was a bit of a fool, too._ )

He found Maul, after the horrifying detour, and stopped, at seeing the old man that had slain him.

( _Obi-Wan. Jetii –_ _ **his**_ _jetii – his jedi, his lover – ho_ _w? Why? Why didn't he find him? Why didn't he bring him with him?_ )

“I'm sorry, Rex.” The Jedi said, and Rex shook his head, hurt.

“I _mourned_ you.” His voice cracked, despite himself, and Obi-Wan's expression softened.

He stayed the night, curled up with the former general, talking.

“Stay.” Obi-Wan said softly, and Rex looked up at him. He smiled softly.

“Not yet.” He said.

“Then I will wait.” Obi-Wan promised.

When Kanan died, Rex looked at Hera, who looked back at him. Both of them were exhausted from the fighting, but it something Hera only knew how to do, and something Rex was bred to do.

Could he so easily retire?

“We'll miss you.” Hera said softly, as they watched the pyre – the empty pyre, a symbol of mourning, of a deceased Jedi, and Vod – burned.

“Who said I'm going anywhere?” Rex asked.

“Kanan.” Hera said, smiling sadly. “He knew you were going to leave. He told me it would happen, after you went after Maul for us.” Rex was silent, and managed to tear his eyes away from the pyre.

“Come with me.” Retire with me – raise your child, Kanan's child, peacefully, away from everything.

“... Not yet.” She said softly, and Rex merely nodded.

He returned to Tatooine. Ben stayed for a year, before going to help Senator Organa's little princess, Leia Organa.

( _Luke's sister – Skywalker's daughter, a set of twins, born into death and corruption._ )

He'd offered to go with him, and Luke, but Ben declined, promising to be back as quickly as possible.

He rejoined the Rebellion, when Hera sent him the message about Ben.

It's different this time.

He's hurt, and _furious_ , and Sabine called it _staabi kaden_ *, when the others ask why he was angry and bitter and more vicious than before.

“Hey! You're the guy- Ben's husband!” Luke had said, the one moment they had met.

Understanding turns in most others' heads, and Kallus and Zeb refuse to leave him alone.

His nights change, after that. He no longer lays alone, but someone is always with him.

Kallus and Zeb, first, and then, when she finds out, Sabine does it most, before Hera joins him with Jacen, who is tiny and small and feels like the only thing that can bring a smile back onto his face (and maybe, just maybe, that's exactly why Hera brings Jacen to him, as often as she does, because it's the only time he doesn't feel like the galaxy's gone to shit).

The first time he sees Ezra again, is when Sabine brings him, and Luke, into the room, and the two spectres join him in bed while he's looking at a battle plan Leia had asked him to look over. Luke hesitates, but joins them, too, after Ezra waving him over.

Luke knows their anniversary – of course he does, why is Rex so surprised at that – and when it rolls around, Hera brings Jacen to him, asking him to babysit for the day because she has a mission to go on with Zeb and Kallus, and Sabine and Ezra have their own, and Luke has one with Leia and Han.

Jacen can talk, now.

“Daddy!” He pointed to the holo of the Ghost Crew, shortly after he arrived, with Ahsoka, and Gregor, and Wolffe with them (Wolffe and Gregor did not stay, but they stayed long enough to give information of what they knew, and it was enough, for Ahsoka, before she let them go).

“Yeah, that one.” Rex confirmed, and Jacen's smile was bright, at that.

“Daddy!”

“Want a story, then, little one?” He asked, and Jacen squealed, and Rex smiled at him.

“Well... One day, my vode and I were on Seelios, when all of a sudden, a ship arrives, and a few _jetii_ step off it...”

He's not surprised, when Ezra and Sabine join them, and then Luke (though Han and Leia _were_ a surprise), and finally Hera returned with Kallus and Zeb, as he's talking, and Jacen is cackling madly whenever Kallus or Sabine or Ezra butt into the story with _their_ side of it.

(They all agree that Kanan was a bit of an idiot – though it was funny, in hindsight.)

(He doesn't realize his heart feels lighter, until he's halfway through talking about his time in the clone army, after Anakin and Ahsoka had thrown him off a wall, and Obi-Wan yelling at all three of them about it, after the mission.)

(His family is there, letting him talk, listening in a way they'd never done before, and it feels _better_ , lighter, and he realizes it then.)

(He'll be okay.)

 


End file.
